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July 17, 2003

roscoe update

Did you ever have a nagging, throbbing headache that just wouldn't go away, no matter what you did? I'm not talking the kind of headache that makes you want to lie down in a dark room with an icebag on your head while you pray for death. No, I'm talking about the minor kind that becomes major just because you can't live with the nagging discomfort anymore.

Today was Chinese Water Torture Day.

I invented a pair of underwear that I thought would work. I cut a hole in a pair of tighty-whities so that my twins could breathe while Roscoe stayed tightly penned. That felt pretty good when I put them on today, and as I drove to work, I felt no pain or irritation at all. Shit, I thought, I got THIS job!

But as I was walking into the plant, I realized that more work was required before I had THIS job. It was nothing really specific. It was more like that nagging headache developing in undefined parts my of crotchital area. It didn't get worse as the day wore on, but it didn't get any better, either. It just ached and ached and ached. By 1400 this afternoon, I was ready to scream, "I can't TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!"

Moutrin didn't help. Walking didn't help. Sitting didn't help. Cussing didn't help. Repositioning the equipment didn't help. I didn't have the strong, nauseating pain from Tuesday, or the constant, specific pain from Wednesday. I just had this low-rent, telemarketer kind of pain-in-the-genitals that almost drove me apeshit. (By the way, "low rent" pain by my standards keeps other people out of work. I learned to suck it up from playing football.)

I STILL feel it, although not as badly, now that I have my pants OFF me and several stiff drinks IN me. But goddam.

I called the doctor today and he said that everything I was experiencing was completely normal. "Discomfort" should be expected for about two weeks following the surgery, and my semi-boner was a result of swelling at the base of the penis, from the incision (and the fact that he stuffed about a pound of luggage through that hole), and I should see that go away shortly. (It IS going down a little every day.)

Right now, I would like to show him a little "discomfort."

"Doc, go stand on that fire ant mound for ten hours. Does that count as "discomfort" in your book? I just want to make sure we're on the same page here, as far as "discomfort" goes.

Sonofabitch. I can make one more day, and then I'm off for the weekend.

Heh. Reminds me of a comedian's joke...
the dentist told him he'd feel a little pain during the procedure...guy grabbed the dentist by the balls and said, "the more pain I feel, the harder I'll squeeze. Let me know if you feel any discomfort".
Or something like that...

Read a sci-fi story once about an ER in deep space that treated all sorts of weird critters. Every time a patient came in the first step was figuring out what the fuck it was before you could figure out how to treat it. I remember the observation that to a medic, "discomfort" could be anything from a minor itch to being boiled in oil.